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Patent Troll Tracker is Cisco's Rick Frenkel

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Rick Frenkel, Director, Intellectual Property at Cisco Systems, Inc. and law school grad of Loyola Marymount and registered patent attorney 47578, is the "patent troll tracker."

In the context of the WARF suit against Intel, Frenkel was quoted:

"The big issue we're seeing is that the number of patent lawsuits filed by entities that make no products is overwhelming," said Rick Frenkel, Cisco Systems' director of intellectual property.

Ten years ago, Cisco faced one or two patent infringement cases a year, mostly from competitors, Frenkel said. Now, it's sued about once a month by "entities" -- some with no connections to inventors -- that make money by licensing patents and suing companies for infringing on them, he said.

trolltracker.blogspot notes:

So now that it?s happened, let me introduce myself. My name is Rick Frenkel. I started in IP over 10 years ago, as a law clerk at Lyon & Lyon in Los Angeles. After a few years there as a law clerk and attorney, I litigated patent cases for several years at Irell & Manella. Two years ago I moved to the Valley and went in-house at Cisco. In my career, I have represented plaintiffs, defendants, large companies, small companies, individual inventors, universities, and everything in between. I currently work at Cisco.

trolltracker also notes:

Although my direct manager at Cisco knew I was writing the blog, the content was entirely my own, and nobody at Cisco ever wrote any content for me or made any attempts to edit me, nor was anyone up the chain above my direct manager aware that I was the author.

Cisco respects intellectual property, and indeed is one of the most innovative companies in the world. Our patent portfolio, consistently ranked as one of the tops in our field, is the result of numerous of hours spent by our hard-working engineers. Our research and development is significant; during the last fiscal year, Cisco spent over $4.5 billion in developing innovative new products and solutions. Cisco also has a culture of openness and transparency. Within Cisco, there are both company blogs, and also blogs by employees on their own time. This blog is in that tradition, and I am proud to be part of a terrific organization.

IPBiz adds, in the spirit of openness and transparency, that Cisco hosted a fundraiser for Senator Patrick Leahy, who is pushing S.1145 on patent reform.

Full post as published by IPBiz on February 24, 2008 (boomark / email).